Mr. RICHARDSON:

In answer to my hon. friend from Lothbiniere, I cannot give the exact amount of the several subsidies offhand, but I have the information in my desk and am willing to go into details with him.

I certainly do not overstate the facts; they are as I have told you. I freely acknowledge that the Canadian Pacific railway is a well managed and a courteously conducted railway to-day. But in the old days they were very domineering and dictatorial to the people of the West, and they swaggered about that country just as if they owned it. When the so-called liberal Government got into office they undertook to solve the transportation problem by supplying a com-

peting railroad. Now, competition is not desirable even if it is possible; and it is not possible even if it is desirable. If the Canadian Pacific had been taken over by the country as it should have been-because I believe in public ownership if properly administered; there is no reason why we cannot get men to run transportation companies as well as private corporations can-I repeat that if the Canadian Pacific had been taken over by the people in the early days, properly operated and branch lines built to accommodate the settlers where necessary, it would have developed that country and would have furnished the people of the West with the railroad transportation that was necessary, instead of which, as my hon. friend knows and as the members of this House know, subventions in land were given to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and to other railway companies, and those lands were held by those companies in order that they might profit by the unearned increment, by the settlement in that country of a large population. Those companies did not sell their land holdings, and the result was that the settlers were obliged to move off ten, fifteen and twenty miles from the railway lines, instead of occupying these rich railway lands that were available for settlement. The result was that the people there almost reached a state of armed rebellion in one case, for they did not want that kind of policy. Thereupon the friends of my hon. friend undertook to "solve" the question, and they talked with indescribable foolishness about the whole proposition. They said: "If you endow another great railway corporation and let them into the West, then that will help solve the problem." The outcome of that talk was the contract with the Grand Trunk for the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific, and the Transcontinental. While I think of it, let me tell my hon. friend this- fact-and I want him 'to put a pin in the argument and just keep it there, because it is the crux of the whole thing-it was not the Government of Canada that forced the Grand Trunk to build the Grand Trunk Pacific or the Transcontinental; the Government-of Canada had nothing to do with it: it was the directors of the Grand Trunk, lead by the late Charles M. Hays, the Grand Trunk president, that forced this contract on the people, and if by virtue of this contract we find this state of chaos at the present time, and that the Grand Trunk has piled up this enormous debt on the coun-

try, why should we come to the rescue ot the Grand Trunk?

Mr. VIEN:

We are all agreed on that.

Mr. RICHARDSON:

I am delighted to know that my hon. friend agrees with me on that point, because I did not so understand him; I thought he was arguing that the Grand Trunk had got a legal grip. I must tell my hon. friend that neither he nor his friends will ever get into office by defending these corporation tactics, and that it is high time that the people's representatives took a right position on questions of this kind. The people of Canada have been swindled in the most appalling style for the last twenty-five or thirty years, and our politicians on both sides of the House are almost equally to blame-there is a frank confession. But, in the name of all that is sensible, has not the time come when we should put an end to it? Let the Grand Trunk live up to its obligations. Why should we come to the rescue of the Grand Trunk at the present time? They got themselves into the difficulty; let them get out of it the best way they can.

Mr. VIEN:

But you have come to the rescue by the Order in Council.

Mr. RICHARDSON:

My hon. friend having interrupted me, will he tell me in a word what should have been done?

iMt. VIEN: I said it was only necessary to wait until they were in default, and they would have been in default in a very few days.

Mr. RICHARDSON:

Yes, but let me inform my hon. friend again that not only were they in default, but they notified the Government: "Take the road; we cannot operate it any longer."

Mt. VIEN:

They did not say any such thing. The hon. member will not find anything in the papers to substantiate his statement.

Mr. RICHARDSON:

I appeal to the hon. leader of the Government whether the Grand Trunk did not say that they would cease to operate. What does that mean?

Mr. VIEN:

They closed a branch line.

Mr. RICHARDSON:

Oh, they closed a

branch line ! No wonder the Acting Prime Minister laughs, as everybody in this House must laugh who knows the facts. What is closing down the road but ceasing to operate? Why, of course it is.

Mr. VIEN:

Oh, no.

Mr. RICHARDSON:

My hon. friend is

somewhat younger than I am and I am going to give him a little advice. When you undertake to criticise a policy, you are in duty bound -to propose an alternative. If the Government had not done this, just the state of affairs that I have already described would have existed, and my hon. friend and the other members of the Opposition would have been railing at the Government about the outrage perpetrated on the West, of allowing the Grand Trunk Pacific to cease operation. And what sort of situation would we have had in the West where this line serves the people? It would have been indescribable. There was absolutely no other course for the Government to take.

But my hon. friend must know, and his friends must know, that they have been guilty of bringing about a highly disturbing state of affairs in this country, and we are to-day faced with difficulties that I would hardly like to describe. This railroad question is almost of as great, if not as great, importance as the tariff, because it means so much to the people, and we are so tangled up at the present time with its intricacies that I do not know how we are going to evolve ourselves from the difficulty. It will take the Government all its time to pilot the ship through the rough waters created by our railroad policy, and unless there is some criticism that should properly be directed towards the Government, I do not know that anything of the tenor offered by my hon. friend from Lotbiniere (Mr. Vien) ought to be indulged in this afternoon.

Before the hon. gentleman spoke I had my notes prepared, and I proposed to go into this question very fully. I was going to criticise the Government somewhat, for its failure, through the Acting Prime Minister to speak out in as plain Anglo-Saxon as I think the circumstances of the case demand, because although I was not in the House-unfortunately I was sent for last week and did not hear what my hon. friend the Acting Prime Minister said-but in reading the papers I gathered the impression that he said, " We want to treat the Grand Trunk with fairness if not with generosity. We must be pretty fair to them." Now, it seems to me that the position is not one of generosity at all, it is one of simple justice, and this country may just as well understand now as later that it cannot any longer afford to be generous. It has been too generous-generous with the railway exploiters and promoters to the extent

that has almost involved the country in disaster. The time for generosity is past. The Grand Trunk is not entitled to generosity, because its own financial management got the country into this difficulty. Let it take the consequences, whatever the consequences are, instead of railing at the Government. I should think that if the members of the Opposition desired to stand right with this country they would, like me. be demanding that the Government should make the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific toe the mark. That is the only kind of policy that will appeal to the people of this country; no other policy, I think, should be tolerated.

Now, I intended at the outset to refer to what I regard as a press conspiracy in this country to try and do the work which my hon. friend from Lotbiniere (Mr. Vien) was attempting to do, to help the Grand Trunk inferentially at the expense of the public. I have three or four newspaper clippings here. Perhaps I should first refer to the financial papers. With one or two honourable exceptions, the financial papers that derive their living from the corporations are, of course, disposed to excuse and to help the Grand Trunk-we might expect that. But to have a string of newspapers in this country pursuing a similar policy is very disturbing to the people and must be very distressing to the Acting Prime Minister. I assume that the Acting Prime Minister is going to stand absolutely by the people and by his duty, and until I find him taking another position I propose to give him my confidence.

Here is the Montreal Gazette, a virulent opponent of public ownership. It is all very well to oppose public ownership by pointing to the Intercolonial and saying: "The Lord forbid; let us have no more public ownership." But the Intercolonial was built-begun decades ago-as a condition of Confederation. It was not run as a commercial enterprise. It tapped this place and that place; it ran along around the coast; it was designed to cement the Maritime Provinces together and to weld that part of the country to the rest of Canada. Many things were done that should not have been done; we have had political management of that road and it has not been good. But let me tell my hon. friend that until recent years the people of the Maritime Provinces had their freight carried at one-quarter the rates prevailing on privately-owned railways. Had the rates prevailed on the Intercolonial that prevailed on other lines, I believe that the

Intercolonial would have paid. It has been making ends meet; occasionally it has had a little deficit and occasionally a surplus. So that it is not quite to the point to refer to the Intercolonial, hold up our hands in horror and say that we must not have public ownership.

When the Government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier undertook to make this deal with the Grand Trunk, Sir Wilfrid himself said that public ownership was a dangerous fad and should be avoided; that out railways should be built by private enterprise. And that marvellous man, Clifford Sifton, who always looked like a sphinx and went about with his mind absolutely concealed, giving the impression that there was a reservoir of deep wisdom in his cranium, went out into his constituency and denounced public ownership in the strongest terms. He even said: "I do not want anybody who believes in public ownership to vote for me."

Mr. VIEN:

Does the hon. gentleman wish to be complimentary to Clifford Sifton?

Air. RICHARDSON:

I give my hon. friend credit for sufficient intelligence to place his own interpretation on my words.

Air. VIEN:

My hon. friend may be sarcastic.

Air. RICHARDSON:

I may tell my hon. friend en passant that I ran against Clifford Sifton that time and I had him pretty well beaten up to a night or two before the election; but the "Liberal" emissaries spread over the constituency like a miasma, and it took me all my time to make a decent showing at the polls.

Air. MURPHY:

The overseas vote came in.

Mr. RICHARDSON:

The point I wish to make is this: even as prominent a man as Sir Wilfrid Laurier and as great a bluff as Clifford Sifton utterly ignored what history showed that the nations of the "world had accomplished. I dislike quoting Germany in this House; everybody dislikes Germany so that I mention the name under my breath. But Germany's railroads are owned by the State, and were a great success. Hungary owns its own railroads, or most of them. Italy owns most of her railroads. Aly hon. friend will agree that when I speak of that glorious and glorified country, France, in this connection, I am giving a good instance: France owns most of her railroads. The Australasian colonies own their railroads; in fact, the best of the countries all over the earth own their own

railroads. I bring this up merely to emphasize the indescribable foolishness that those men talked when they denounced public ownership as a fad or a fancy and said: "In Heaven's name, let us not have it here." And then they entered into contracts entailing a liability of a billion on the country-to get rid of what? Of public ownership. And ye gods! That very expenditure has forced public ownership on our country. Just think how the wheel of fortune turns; just think of the irony of fate: these people who undertook to solve the transportation question by springing these contracts and these railroads on the country did the very thing that now forces the Government to adopt public ownership. The Government cannot do anything else.

Take the Canadian Northern, which we discussed last session and which I shall not spend any time referring to this afternoon. But what an appalling mess the Canadian Northern is or was: four hundred millions

of liabilities, to say nothing of the liabilities of all these other railroads, and yet we have prominent newspapers lauding private ownership as if it had always proved a great success. How are we going to avoid public ownership? The Montreal Gazette, the Montreal Star, and one or two other publications that I might mention, think that we ought to continue private ownership. But if we do, we shall keep pouring the country's millions into the same capacious maw-and at that, where are we going to get to. Absolutely nowhere. I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet,, but if the policy of the Government is followed; if we have an intelligent, responsible, wise, businesslike commission of management for the publicly owned system-and I think we will get it; my hon. friend can help force the Government to see that we get it-appalling as these mistakes have been, appalling as the liabilities in connection with these railroads are, we shall be able to co-ordinate the Grand Trunk, the Grand Trunk Pacific, and the Canadian Northern, perhaps utilize the Transcontinental, and, get rid of unnecessary mileage, and furnish this country with a proper transportation system. And in addition-mark my words: I may not live to see it but you will-we will force much better rates than we have at present.

If there is one question that hon. gentlemen should study it is the railway question, because we have to deal with it at the present time; it is knocking at our door. Letting politics into it will not help us. We are up against the real thing in Canada, with an expenditure of nearly

$500,000,000 contemplated this session. Half a billion-where are we going to get the money? It behooves every member of this House and every individual in the country to consider carefully what policy we ought to adopt in order to save this country from ruin. Nothing will be gained by playing politics. I am an old Liberal.

I believe in what I regard as Liberal principles. But we shall not get anywhere by-blaming this Government or blaming that Government or by making legal arguments about this point or legal argument about that point. To do that may sound clever and may have an effect upon a few of one's own partisan constituents who vote for you once when you are right and twice when you are wrong; but it does not help the country and it will not get the individual member anywhere. We have a great task to perform.

I had hoped that my hon. friends opposite would be absolutely sound on this railway question. I hope the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Vien), who has just spoken, is the only one on the opposite side from whom we shall, during this session, hear a similar kind of criticism on the railway question.

Mr. BUREAU:

What does the hon. member mean when he hopes that we shall be absolutely sound? Is he speaking of public ownership?

Mr. RICHARDSON:

In my judgment, there is no other solution for the question than public ownership. The railroads-the babies have been placed on our laps, and we have to nurse them. Would my hon. friend hand back the Canadian Northern to Mackenzie and Mann or would he continue pouring tens of millions of dollars into that enterprise? Would he still keep pouring tens of millions of dollars into the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific? The hon. gentleman has asked me a question. I would like him to answer that.